Sunday, July 31, 2011

We have been working with Moira on how to compromise. It seems to be helping when she is with other kids, or possibly she's just verbally adept enough now to convince them to do what she wants. There are still two major problems for her.
1) Boys. Considering that she's still obsessed with weddings, and is waiting for her husband to show up so they can go to Seattle and get married, I would expect her to be a little more interested in boys. Instead she seems to be getting more and more antagonistic towards them. Yesterday at a birthday party, she refused to get into a bouncy house because there was a single boy playing with multiple girls inside it. She also refused a wagon ride because she would have had to ride with another boy (who was very confused by her refusal). I think this is some of the reason she frequently tells me she "hates Daddy" and also why she likes to tell me that she doesn't want to see my friend's son, who she appears to have decided is the "everyboy" and blames for everything bad any boy between the ages of 2 and 6 has done to her. On the plus side, she has no problem with boys under two, so maybe she just likes younger men. I should tell her she'll have to wait longer for her wedding that way.
2) Us. I don't try to explain about compromise too much when she's angry/sad/overtired, but she has started suggesting her own compromises in the midst of her screaming. For instance, today she and Walker were getting ready to go outside, when Walker got distracted and Moira decided it was a better idea to watch TV. We said no, and suggested some other alternatives, playing a board game, going for a walk... She said no and said "How about I watch Arthur by myself and Daddy fast forwards through the dinosaurs. Is that a good compromise?" She suggested it three more times before I suggested that maybe calming down before we decide what to do would be a good idea, and how about Daddy reading her a book.
I'm hoping that if we can get her to start understanding how to negotiate, it will cut down a bit on the screaming fits. Especially since the current best way is to remove whatever thing was causing the repeated, long drawn out screaming. That wasn't really an option when clothing was the problem, so instead we had to force her into getting dressed (and putting shorts under the dresses), and I doubt it will work well with her current problem with drinking water, since we keep going places where other people are drinking non water things.
Anyway, I'm rambling now, so I will leave you with a picture of her in the wedding dress I made her for dress up. She has only put it on once, and it was specifically so I would take pictures of her in it, but hey, that's better then her previous plan to save it for her wedding.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Moira has recently been insisting on making her own sandwiches. She gets the ingredients she can reach, helps spread, and most importantly, puts the top on when it's done. She does a good job spreading when she is patient about it, but frequently she smushes things around a bit and then lets me have a turn.
Last weekend she was very upset when we wouldn't cut her sandwich into a circle for her (and also cut the crusts off, I assume she picked this up from television, like her knowledge of who Kai-Lan is), so I pulled out the cookie cutters. Now cutting her sandwich into a fancy shape is a big deal, something she also wants to help with. So far we've done a wide variety of 'pretty' shapes, Tinkerbell, hearts, bunnies, stars. She's got a little work to do on figuring out which ones are too big, but most of the ones she likes are small enough to fit on her bread.
I was doing something terribly important the other day, like being grouchy on the couch and reading Facebook, when she asked me to cut out this paper doll for her. Since that required getting the scissors I promised to do it in a few minutes. Moira said "That's okay! I'll do it myself!" and ran off to the art table where she started snipping. I geared up for what I assumed would be our conversation about how once you cut the paper doll into tiny pieces, Mommy cannot tape it back together, but this is what she did. I'm SUPER impressed, she only crossed the line twice, and one of those is a rip, so it was even less intentional. She picked out a dress for the doll for me to cut out, and then carried her around for the rest of the day, even insisting that she sleep with her.
I have always loved cutting paper, and I'm glad she seems to like it too. I remember spending a lot of time cutting out friend's paper dolls from an early age while they oohed and aahed over my ability to cut on the lines. Now I get to ooh and aah at Moira's ability to do the same. Mother daughter paper doll days, here we come!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Last week, Pearl and her daughter came over for a craft day. M decorated a jacket, Pearl worked on a shirt, Moira did beading, and I started a wedding dress that Moira had been requesting for a couple of months.
I finished it up the next day, but have been unable to convince Moira to actually wear it. She prefers to save anything she deems "too pretty" for a special occasion that never comes. I am trying to explain that when she actually gets married I will make her ANOTHER wedding dress, this one is just for pretend, but I think that like all the purses and bags she has packed that we can never ever unpack, this may be a losing battle.
I have been saving a wide variety of laces and ribbons, mostly given to me by people when their grandma's stop sewing. This is the first time I've used more then a yard or two. Pearl was very impressed.
After a couple of hours of beading, Moira got bored, so I suggested she could decorate a onesie for the new baby. She wasn't actually that interested in this activity, probably because it was close to naptime. She scribbled on it for awhile and then declared herself finished. I have another blank onesie, and I think we will have to try this activity again when she's not already cranky. Not sure when that will be since I tend to pull out activities as a distraction technique, but we'll get to it.
I'm glad we had a craft day. We have a sewing play date set up for later this week, but I think the kids are just supposed to play. I'm assuming that the presence of other children will be enough to keep her from wanting to work with me too much.
It must be true that children will pick the things to be excited about that will drive you the most crazy. First there is the pink/princess/fancy/bride thing we are in the throes of, and now she's started cleaning. Since we have a bottle of vinegar and water, I'm not worried about her using as much as she wants, but she keeps trying to clean the windows with one of our pot scrubbers. I finally hid the spray bottle on Friday just because I am so tired of the conversation that happens while she's cleaning. "I'm a cleaner Mommy! Now I'm cleaning this window! All done! Which window next?"
This would make more sense as an obsession if I ever cleaned, but I am doing less while pregnant then normal, and I didn't clean often to start with. She loves to mop the floors too, but that takes a lot more intervention on my part, so I don't let her do it often. I should probably be encouraging this, shouldn't I?